ON AGRICULTURE TO DENMARK 129 



extinction of profit in 1901-02 are attributed not to a decrease 

 of traffic, but on the contrary to an increase so great that much 

 fresh capital expenditure was required to cope with it. We are 

 informed that the outlay upon new material, plant, machinery, 

 and staff has nearly doubled between the years 1897-8 and 

 1901-02. The return to profitable working in 1902-03 shows that 

 the costs of expansion were wisely undertaken ; and it will be 

 seen that the year 1903-4 presents a still more favourable account, 

 as a law increasing considerably the passenger rates came into 

 force on August 1, 1903. The point here concerning us, however, 

 is that the goods rates are as low as they can be made ; lower 

 than any company working for dividend would be content to 

 make them. Denmark's State railways are a national asset, large 

 enough without reckoning State harbours, forests, and domains to 

 offset the public debt of £13,600,000. She is therefore justified 

 in so constructing her Budget as to dispense with any substantial 

 amount of revenue from the railway service. She is bound in all 

 questions as to the relative burden of goods rates and passenger 

 rates to keep in view the agriculturists' dependence upon the 

 export business. She cannot afford to make profit out of the 

 railways to the detriment of the export business. In any case, 

 the farmers see to it that the railways shall not earn too much 

 profit when there is the agreeable alternative of reducing the goods 

 traffic rates. For the farmers have the fixed idea that the State 

 railways are part of their co-operative system whereby commodities 

 are to be transported with the minimum of addition to the costs of 

 production. 



The State ownership of Danish railways takes them out of 

 a useful comparison with railways which are answerable to private 

 shareholders. It enables extensions of the track to be made and 

 facilities given that are not completely j unified by the traffic 

 prospects. It enables the State to use the railways as part of 

 a science of marketing; the State being content to obtain its 

 reward in the form of a richer and more numerous people, a 

 people of higher spending power and greater tax-bearing capacity. 

 The outstanding features of the collection and transportation of 

 goods in Denmark serve indeed to emphasise the familiar com- 

 plaint made by British Railway Companies when they are charged 

 with favouring the foreigner in the matter of rates. It is our 

 interest, say the British Railway Companies, to foster the home 

 market, because the establishment of prosperous industries in the 

 products of the field, farm and dairy, means an ultimate advantage 

 to carrying companies much greater than is obtainable from the 

 encouragement of the foreign import business, the one raising the 

 hope of increased passenger traffic, the other beginning and ending 

 with the transport of goods. But so long as the home producer 

 is a unit he cannot expect the terms of producers acting in 

 combination. It is here we realise the value as a marketing 

 agency of the co-operative network extending over Denmark. 

 The farmer making up his own goods into lots according to his 

 individual capacity, despatching for himself, selling for himself, 



